The Joy Luck Club Cultural Analysis

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The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan shows the struggles of Chinese Americans and the cultural shift between generations in San Francisco. The book tells of stories of different Chinese Americans and how they came to America. Many of the women have struggled with marriage or family, which is why they moved to California. When the daughters of the women are young, lessons are taught by their mothers about beliefs of obedience. Nevertheless, many symbols of luck, hope, and wisdom are expressed during the stories. “And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And that’s how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck” (7). The stories within the make the reader joyful due to heartwarming mother and daughter moments. …show more content…
Often the mothers and daughters argue over what they do, which is caused by the American view affecting the daughters. As well, the difficulty with translation among Chinese and English separate the mothers and daughters. Jing-mei realizes that the daughters think the mothers are stupid, because of their poor English, while the mothers are annoyed with their daughters who do not understand the importance to pass down their Chinese heritage. "’I don’t believe you. Let me see the book.’ ‘It is written in Chinese. You cannot understand it. That is why you must listen to me" (44). Within The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan talks about sexism and the sacrifices for love. In China, Lindo is put into a forced marriage, which then almost makes her a servant to her husband and mother-in-law. As well, An-mei’s mother had to marry her future husband to honor her family, because she was raped by him. Most characters made great sacrifices for the love of others. “Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain. This is how a daughter honors her mother” (21-22). An-mei’s mother cuts a piece of her flesh to put in her mother’s soup to help cure her. Even though the daughters and mothers had differences, their connection was strong and helped the transition to
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